Considerations of Gender and Sex in Figure Skating

[gravy]

But the real question, IMHO, is why do we think that ladies are genetically better spiralers and laybackers than gentlemen? I don't think that men inherently have less flexible backs or worse edge control. The reason (don't shoot the messenger ) that spirals and layback spins are traditionally regarded as "ladies" elements, is that ladies look so pretty doing them.

Because they are.

Similar to the question on why ladies are better spinners than men as a whole, the answer is balance. Women have lower centers of gravity compared to the men because of their hips, meaning they can balance themselves better to create for an easier spin (or spiral) and as a result can do more difficult spin positions (IE, a layback, COE spiral). Some men can do those difficult variations (like a Biellmann) because of practice, practice, practice (Sawyer for spirals; Plushenko, Hanyu, Lambiel for spins); but it's not as natural for them as it is for ladies who have an inherent biomechanical advantage.

And likewise for the men, they have the biological advantage of increased muscle mass on their upper bodies (which in turn leads to their higher center of gravity). At one point, your legs just aren't strong enough to power a 3A or quad jump so you have to use your upper body to help you. This is why we have seen so few female skaters land these jumps.

So if you were a man, would you rather: train jumps that garner lots of points or train spins/spirals that don't garner as much and aren't even required?

 

[Mathman]

I read somewhere (might have been Artistic Impressions) that, had Yuna Kim been permitted to compete in the men's competition at the Olympics in 2010, she would have earned the bronze medal. This is simply in virtue of (1) her PCS not being degraded by 20% in virtue of being a "lady", and (2) what she easily could have added to her program with the extra time, given also the additional number of elements "men" are permitted.

Making only the adjustment for PCS factoring and not even giving Kim the extra element, she wins the long program.

Kim 168.00
Lysacek 167.37
Plushenko 165.51
Lambiel 162.09

But then again, Yuna skated really well in that competition; the lads, not so much.

Similar to the question on why ladies are better spinners than men as a whole, the answer is balance. Women have lower centers of gravity compared to the men because of their hips, meaning they can balance themselves better to create for an easier spin (or spiral) and as a result can do more difficult spin positions (IE, a layback, COE spiral).

As mentioned above (post 59) there is a reason that tops (children's spinning toys) are shaped the way they are. Strangely, though, the best ladies spinners are not necessarily the hippiest. Here's Lucinda Ruh:

http://www.frogsonice.com/skateweb/reports/2002-ewc/dsc04812.jpg

 

[gkelly]

e question can be asked about women and jumps. Might more women be doing triple axels and quads if jumps weren't so male-gendered, given the power of gender in virtually all societies?

No. The dedicated senior-level athletes have been trying since before they were novices to master as many triple jumps as possible. Those we see at the elite levels are the ones who were most successful at doing so. Some of the best jumpers have tried working on triple axels and quads, but only about a dozen have ever attempted any such jump in competition, only about half of those ever successfully, and only Ito and Asada with any kind of long-term consistency.

It's not that the rest of them aren't trying hard enough. It's that they realize early on that they're not likely to succeed no matter how hard they try, so if they want to score well in the real world they're better off working on skills that they'll actually be able to get credit for in competition.

Same with men and the more difficult quads.

The development from doubles to triples in the 1960s-80s was more male driven both because of social expectations and because the good male jumpers were biologically able to jump a lot higher than the good femal jumpers. But also equipment and technique had to evolve to allow the more difficult jumps.

Now we're at a point where the social expectations have little effect on whether women choose to train difficult jumps. If they could rotate them and land them consistently, they would get many points. The novice girls who can do difficult triples score better than those who do only doubles or easier triples. They'll keep trying to add to their jump repertoire as they get to senior level, but at a certain point they're going to max out based on technique and equipment and body type. It's not social expectations holding them back.

Given the current state of technique and equipment, it seems that the maximum amount of rotation in the air that the best female jumpers can achieve is just over 3 revolutions (enough for a triple lutz, not enough for a triple axel), and the most men can achieve is not-quite-four, for the easier quads toe loop and salchow (with handful of exceptions who have managed quad lutz, four full revolutions, but never with any consistency).

If we're going to see women doing triple axels and quads, I think at least one of the following things would need to happen:

*Change in equipment that allows skaters to jump higher, giving more time in the air to complete rotation (I think this is most likely at some point in the future, but I don't know of any such changes currently under development)

*Change in the force of gravity where skating competitions take place (much further in the future if at all, and that will change the sport in much more significant ways)

*Change in the rules so that downgraded triple axels and quads are worth so much more than clean double axels and triples that women will train to put out these jumps without completely rotating them. More men will still be able to rotate them cleanly, so that would not put women on an equal footing with men.

*Change in the rules so that landing clean triple axels and quads determines the winners and everyone who can't do at least one of the above cleanly might as well give up their hopes of being an elite skater and quit the sport.

We're already at that point for double axels and triple jumps.

Let's say that, given the current level of equipment and technique and gravity, 10% of all skaters who master at least one double jump will ever go on to master at least one triple, and 1% will ever go on to master triple lutz. The percentage for male skaters will be higher than for females, but not as high as 50% and 5%. Maybe 5% of the males have the potential to master triple axels and 1% quads.
(I'm just making up numbers, but I think they're more or less at the right order of magnitude.)

The rest will never make it to elite levels in singles skating. Lots of hopeful kids giving up their dream when biology makes it clear they don't have what it takes. Or continuing along below elite levels because they enjoy the sport at the level they can achieve, and occasionally excelling so much at other skills, or representing a country with so few other skaters, that they have the opportunity to compete internationally albeit not at the highest levels.

So let's say that 0.1% of all girls who ever learn double jumps would have the potential to master a triple axel and/or quad, with the current state of technique/equipment/gravity.

IF there were rules that make those jumps more important than everything else that the already highly selected field of elite female skaters can achieve, then I think the only way to find and train enough women around the world to fill out an international field would be to recruit kids from early ages who show the potential to have the right body type and mindset and give them lots of incentive, financial and otherwise, to train as jumping machines. That might involve changing the image of the sport so that athletic compactly built girls would choose skating over other sports or activities they could go into.

If my estimate of 0.1% have the potential is close to correct, you would need a hundred thousand girls training for 10 years just to get a hundred women who can land triple axel or quad.

It would be simpler to invent lighter/stronger/springier skates.

Also: We can't really generalize from the actual. How actual women skaters would have stacked up against actual male skaters (when used to show male dominance) is mostly irrelevant. This is because the opposing view was always counter-factual: had gender roles and expectations not been what they were, a wholly different set of female and male skaters would have emerged. (Indeed, we might not have even categorized them in terms of what might have been an arbitrary difference.)

Yes, that's true.

But I think if men and women had been competing against each other all along, the rules would have developed to keep more emphasis on the types of skills where biological sex differences do not have much effect. More emphasis on edge skills and less on jumping and flexibility.

 

[Mathman]

*Change in equipment that allows skaters to jump higher, giving more time in the air to complete rotation (I think this is most likely at some point in the future, but I don't know of any such changes currently under development.)

I hope instead they work on ways to reduce the impact on ankles and hips.

I don't know. They could make skates with little springs that shoot you into the air. I don't know that I would cheer such a development.

*Change in the force of gravity where skating competitions take place (much further in the future if at all, and that will change the sport in much more significant ways)

Now you're talking! :yes:

 

[Ladskater]

Not to "rain on any one's parade" here, but Figure Skating is still about Figure Skating....enough said.

 

[Mathman]

^ I wish I had the expertise -- or failing that, the life experience -- to make an intelligent comment on this subject. Are skating boys and girls the same

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/de...356898157_6809_Shibutanis 3.jpg?itok=MvBlCqX0

or different?

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/de...356898157_6961_Shibutanis 1.jpg?itok=Ev288LCT

 

[phaeljones]

Little boys are very different from little girls physically as are men from women. We use sex as a marker but the differences are not just related to the reproductive parts. That binary of identification (ie using reproductive parts) is an efficiency, but there are, as have been pointed out in numerous of the posts here, other differences as well, not the least of which is musculature, hormones, testosterone and centre of gravity in the biology.

To claim that a woman would be able to do a quad if she had been socially conditioned differently from birth onward in present society is absurd, which is what is being claimed if it is also being claimed that women could jump as well as men if they had only been conditioned differently from birth onward. Logically you can make the argument in an academic bubble, but it ain't happened, it isn't happening and it can't happen because women are not men physically in many many ways. It is why no woman, even at the elite level, has not done a quad yet. It is why no male pass the age of twenty can do spins and flexible contortions like gumby. It is why you cannot teach your daughter how to grow a beard.

Binaries are a reality, part of the social contract, and the result of what society as a whole decides. That is why women and men are in different categories. Most people want that. If that is the issue, that is the simple but very deep answer. Rousseau's Social Contract. Binaries can change as society changes, but there will always be binaries unless the society is an anarchist one. As I recall from reading Bobby Noble's article (is Bobby male or female, what did you assume?), Bobby argued that we should all do away with our binaries when judging another person as regards their sexual classification, but Noble still argued that every person still has an identity . . . even if self-determined, it is an identity, that is placed and interacts with others.

There is the academic world of logic where barriers can be broken down abstractly and society can be criticized for its binaries and the necessary compromises it must make for general functioning (why do we have male and female bathrooms still in most places and just which one does a transgendered person go into . . . the one in which that person identifies or the one that society uses to identify him/her?), but there is the reality outside of the vacuum that real people have to live and deal with each other so that something in the world actually happens.

To answer the question, why do we have separate men's and women's competitions, it is because there ARE differences. It is the community standard based on the binaries we have in our society. That can change over time, but right now that is where it is.

But THE question is not why men and women skate in different categories, I would respectfully suggest. No, that is not the correct question unless you cannot differentiate or refuse to differentiate between male and female, or you refuse to acknowledge the differences. Wrong way to look at it, I would suggest.

The real question is whether the binaries will ever change to ignore or negate those differences to create a different common category that is inclusive to all sexes, identities and types. It is a very different question. And it is not just a male/female issue. (To define it just as male and female is a binary statement as well.)

Why we have what we have now is because we have what we want, knowing the differences and valuing those differences more than we do the similarities. Bottom line.